Interview with Guillaume Porquier, CIO at Tape à l'Oeil
Tape à l'Œil (TAO) was one of the first retailers to develop a “phygital" store concept six years ago, going fully digital at one store in Lille in northern France. It’s steadily been introducing more and more technology as part of its omnichannel drive for offering a unique shopping experience for customers:
”Our stores need to provide an emotional draw and additional services, such as a hairdressing area for parents on Saturdays, or English lessons for children,” says Guillaume Porquier, CIO at Tape à l’Œil. “We’re constantly thinking about the store of tomorrow.”
The children's fashion brand thinks of itself as a community business, constantly in touch with its customers. For instance, it has a Family Lab, where its most loyal customers can get involved in jointly creating new collections and test new products before they hit the shelves.
We’re constantly thinking about the store of tomorrow.”
Other retail brands are trying to do things a little differently too.
For instance, introducing more retail theatre in a bid to capture the waning attention of consumers who are increasingly being lured away from stores by online offers.
A lot of customers have switched to the web, so we need to rethink the role of our stores as places to experience the Banana Moon brand better, says Damien Flachaire, Director of International Sales & Operations at Banana Moon. “Bricks-and-mortar stores have to change.”
Nicolas Koller, Global IT Retail Domain Manager at L'Oréal agrees: ”The point of sale has to become a point of experience. We’re continuing to make sure our stores are more experiential, by adding services that respond to the needs of our consumers today and tomorrow.”
The overall consensus is that the store of tomorrow will be a hybrid one: mixing experiential shopping with other online influences, such as places for picking up orders placed online; or even city centre locations for preparing and dispatching e-commerce packages.
”The point of sale has to become a point of experience. We’re continuing to make sure our stores are more experiential, by adding services that respond to the needs of our consumers today and tomorrow.”